The first time I heard its cry, I almost collapsed. High pitched, shrill; it was painful to hear and if I didn't know for a fact that when Jackson got to his van, if I wasn't standing right beside him, he'd leave me behind, I don't know if I could have gone on. Thankfully, I was being driven by a little bit of adrenalin and a whole lot of fear and I found myself actively gaining on him. By the time we reached the main road, we were side by side and his van was sitting there waiting for us. Never before and never again would I have to urge to fall upon my knees and kiss a rusty, beat to hell vehicle like this but I was just so excited to find it still there, just as we'd left it.
Or maybe not…As we drew closer, our hope turned to anguish. The van was not just as we'd left it. It was in tatters. The tires, all four of them, were not only flat, but ripped to shreds and strewn about the dirt road. I knew there was no possible way Jackson kept four spare tires in the back of the van and I wondered if it was even possible or how far we would get on this bumpy road riding on the rims.
The van itself had not faired much better than the tires but the damage seemed to be more cosmetic than anything else; like whatever I had seen in the woods moments ago had decided to use Jackson's car as its personal scratching post.
That didn't stop him though. Without missing a step, he threw open the drivers side door and hoped inside, turning the key in the ignition and getting nothing in response. After a string of colorful words and a few more failed attempts to start the car, he pounded on the dash board, and screamed in frustration. The van was dead.
"We have to get out of here, Jack. You're wasting time," I yelled as I started to run again, hoping to make it into the woods and find some sort of hiding place before this thing had a chance to spot me.
When I looked at Jackson again, his face had darkened and he was cast in shadow. On a beautiful, fall morning, when there wasn't a cloud in the sky, he was shrouded in darkness and then I heard it breathing behind me.
"Jackson," I whispered just before my breath caught in my throat.
"Stay calm, Leese," he yelled through the window. "On the count of three, you're going to run to the passenger side of the van as fast as you can."
"I can't," I whimpered, unable to hide the tears that began to form the second I felt this monsters breath on the back of my neck. "I can't, Jackson."
"Yes you can. On the count of three, you're going to run, you're going to get in the van and you're going to lock the door behind you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," I sobbed.
"Okay; one, two…three!"
And when I heard him say 'three' I took off like a bat out of hell. I probably would have made it too if I hadn't glanced at the windshield for one more reassuring look from Jackson. That's not what I got. Right behind me, reflected in the glass was it, looking every bit as awful, if not more so. In an effort to maintain my sanity, I had tried to convince myself that this was some kind of rabid polar bear. It seemed impossible but I was quickly beginning to understand that in these ancient woods, anything was possible. But this was no polar bear. A polar bear doesn't have the wherewithal to sabotage its quarries sole means of escape. That required thinking, planning and malformed as this thing was; missing fingers, ears and part of its nose, there was something vaguely human about it.
"Oh God, Oh God," I kept repeating and then I slipped on a pile of pine needles which covered the road like a blanket and fell flat on my face. I tried to get up, thinking I might still have a chance, only to have a heavy weight come to rest between my shoulder blades, pushing me back to the ground.
It might seem odd, but at that moment, I thought about something I'd seen on the Oprah Winfrey show the week before. She interviewed a group of hikers that had been attacked by a grizzly bear and the one thing I remembered was that each one of them said that the thing to do in a situation like that was play dead. Something about bears not eating carrion or something like that, at that point I wasn't paying attention anymore but it had worked for them obviously. They had some nasty scratches, not to mention a few bumps and bruises, but the bear had only pawed at them out of curiosity before it went on its way and now they were on national television recounting the ordeal. Hoping it would work for me too, I tucked my arms under my body, drew myself into a fetal position, more or less, and tried to act as dead as anyone could while half out of their mind with fear.
Immediately, it started poking at me, nuzzling at my ear with its partial nose and those appalling sniffs and snorts were impossible to tune out no matter how hard I tried. The thing reeked of decay and I had an image in my mind of this thing roaming the countryside, falling upon unsuspecting campers and ripping them apart, taking bits and pieces to complete its patchwork frame. It certainly smelled that way. I tried to focus on Jackson and what he might be doing to rescue me. Then my rational side took over and I realized that other than hearing the van rock once, there was no sound of a car door slamming or any indication that he was standing behind this thing, gun drawn, and ready to save my life. The rocking I had heard was most likely him reaching over to lock the passenger side door and I was stupid to have thought otherwise. He would have let me sit next to him in that ruined van while we watched the monster lurk outside, but that was about it.
I'm a fighter by nature, I always have been. Jackson for all his tough talk, is a coward but even after all I've been through, I still find it hard to accept that some people cannot stand up for themselves or others. Through fear or ignorance, they look the other way. That's probably why most women are better off crying fire than rape. I don't know why and I really shouldn't care, but some reason, I was disappointed by his failure to act. The fighter in me simply cannot accept spinelessness.
With the hikers long gone and Jackson having left me to my fate, I was down to my last alternative. Why is He always the last one I turn to? Does He dislike me for it? I hope not, because I really need Him right now.
"Please, God, help me. If you get me out of this alive, I promise I'll be in church every Sunday sitting right next to Mr. Paxton and his five kids. You have my word."
I stayed remarkably calm throughout all of this, keeping my body rigid as it repeatedly tried to turn me onto my back. Somehow I knew I couldn't let that happen. I thought it would only be a matter of time before it decided I was dead and moved on, but when its finger touched the side of my face, leaving a trail of slime or rot, I couldn't decide which was worse, in its wake, I lost it. I whimpered before I could stop myself.
Sharp nails tore into me, ripping through my clothing like it wasn't even there and I couldn't get up. It was on me, I couldn't get away and I started screaming; screaming for Jackson, my father, anyone that might get this thing off of me before it literally tore me limb from limb.
Another agonizing scratch and then another scream, only this time it wasn't me and it wasn't the unnamed monster either. It sounded familiar to me and then I remembered I had heard it once before. The voice of the hiker, the one who had told me to run – he must have turned around at some point and noticed that we weren't behind him. He had come back for us. God bless him, he came back.
I smelled smoke, felt the heat, followed by the creatures wail and then it was off of me. I watched it run into the woods, fire dancing along its back as it continued to holler and the man who had come to my rescue was standing over me now, carrying a makeshift torch in his hand and screaming, "How do you like that, huh? That's for Martin!"
"Who was Martin", I wondered.
My whole body trembled. I knew I should be in pain; that when I finally calmed down a bit, I would be in pain but at that moment, the only thing I felt was his hand on my shoulder. The contact made me jump and all the emotions I had managed to keep locked within came flooding out and I burst into tears.
"You're okay," he said as he helped me to my feet. "I've got you now. We're going to take care of you."
I looked up, wanting to put a face to the voice. He had run past us so quickly the first time that I had not had the chance to really catch a glimpse of him or his companion.
He had the richest, brown eyes I'd ever seen, full of concern for me which made them even more attractive. A well built man, his skin was so dark and so perfect; it looked as though he'd been chiseled from black marble and I started to wonder if fear was the only reason I felt weak in the knees.
"You, you saved my life," I said in awe. "You came back for me, for us."
"Somebody had to," he replied in a low voice, turning towards the van with a look of disdain.
Just then, Jackson came running from behind the vehicle with a shot gun in hand. He took in the sight of me, still shaking and bleeding and in the arms of another man who regarded him as little more than a coward.
"Where is it?" he asked.
"Gone," the man replied. "No thanks to you."
Jackson scowled back at him, more than ready for a confrontation, when a petite woman with that same ebony skin stepped out of the woods, capturing all our attentions.
"Emmitt, Emmitt are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm…we're fine, Lindsay. It ran away. Now didn't I tell you to take that thing off?" he asked, snatching the bright red, knit cap from her head. "You stick out like a sore thumb."
"It's okay, we're safe for now," Lindsay responded, snatching her hat back and returning it to its' rightful place as she looked up towards the cloudless sky. "It won't come back until nightfall."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because it hates the light; it only comes out in the daytime if it thinks there's an easy meal. If Emmitt did some damage, it will run off, lick its wounds and come back when the sun sets."
When I stopped shivering from the cold and shaking like a leaf, I planned to ask her exactly what it was and why she knew so much about it. I had a lot of questions, but for now, I didn't think I could handle the answers, so I held my tongue.
Lindsay stepped behind me and I could feel her fingers gently pealing back the shredded layers of my pajama top to get a better look at the damage that had been done.
"I've got a first aid kit in my backpack. Is your campsite nearby, sweetie? You won't last long out here in tattered pj's"
"We don't have a campsite," I answered.
"What about in the van? You've got to have something" she reasoned.
"There's nothing in the van," Jackson snapped, drawing another look of contempt from Emmitt and if I didn't know better, I'd swear my would-be killer was jealous.
"Then what are you two doing up here?" Emmitt asked.
"I'll tell you when we get off this mountain, deal?"
"Whatever, asshole," Emmitt mumbled before he shoved past Jackson and walked to the back of the van, opening the double doors. "Help her back here, Linds. Let's get her cleaned up."
On the way, I felt Jackson grab my hand and I turned to see a desperate look in his eye.
"I wasn't going to leave you. I'm not a coward."
"Sure," I whispered and winked at him, just imagining the rage that was churning within him in the face of my unconcealed sarcasm. He was so angry there was no doubt in mind that if the saying 'there's strength in numbers' hadn't rung so true, he would have killed us all.
Lindsay and I stepped into the van and Emmitt closed the doors behind us to give me some level of privacy. Jackson and Emmitt alone together; what a lovely thought but I was too focused on the pain to really care. I stripped off the blood soaked shirt and felt like death would have been preferable to having my wounds dressed, especially when the rubbing alcohol touched my skin for the first time. What a collection of scars I had. The back matches the front now, I guess.
"Between Emmitt and me, we should be able to find enough clothes to keep you warm for the trip down the mountain."
"How far is it?" I asked.
She sighed heavily before she answered; never a good sign. "You don't want to know," she told me.
I turned away and focused on my breathing as she finished her work and when she was done, she reached into her backpack and handed me a flannel shirt, which I happily pulled on.
"You've been marked," she said matter-of-factly. "When the sun goes down, it's going to come for you first."
Author's Note: Something tells me it would really bother Jackson to be regarded as a coward and I don't think he likes Emmitt very much.
Thanks to emptyvoices for having the patience to review all these chapters. I feel like I've been bombarding her lately, but I've got to ride this productive streak while it lasts.
Thank you all for taking the time to read and/or review. I really appreciate it.